Universe Undone

Chapter 4: Friends and Enemies

After stealing Lunk's jeep, Maxwell finds himself in far more trouble than he'd ever dreamed of.
Meanwhile, Justin and Brian have their own first close call with the Invid. How they plan to handle the situation is another matter, as well as whether or not those actions will come back to bite them in the behind later on.
And last but not least, William and Stan try to find their way out of the desert, just for things to take a turn for the worst, especially when some dark secrets are revealed.

The next morning, everyone had been rudely awakened by the sounds of explosions coming from off in the distance. They also noticed that Lunk's jeep was missing too, and with no sign of Maxwell or Victoria either. And since it had been Rand's job to keep watch for the rest of the night, all fingers were pointing at him now.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep!" He was apologetic now, even though his apologies didn't seem to deter all the angry looks his teammates were giving him in return. "I tried to stay awake, honest! It's not like I had any idea those two would take off in the middle of the night."

"I should have known better than to trust them!" Scott proclaimed with anger as he jumped to his feet, and then hurried over to his alpha fighter to retrieve his cyclone from its storage compartment, all the while wondering if he should just let the Invid deal with them instead.

No we've got to get Lunk's jeep back. It's got a lot of our supplies. He groaned. Even if those two aren't worth the trouble.

"I probably shouldn't have let those two even sleep in the jeep in the first place, I'm sorry," Lunk apologized to the others while feeling like a complete idiot.

"It's okay big guy, you didn't know they couldn't be trusted," Annie patted him on the arm, when Marlene began cradling her head in her hands crying out in pain.

Annie immediately rushed over to her side along with Rook. "It's okay, Marlene," Rook said. "It'll be over soon, just hang in there."

But then right before Scott, Lancer, Lunk, and Rand took off to look for the stolen vehicle, that's about the time Victoria came stumbling out of the woods looking as though she were about to collapse from total exhaustion.

"I couldn't find him," She groaned and fell to her knees with her hair and face all a mess. "I searched and I searched all through the night but he's nowhere to be found." She appeared dazed and confused by all the loud blasting coming from the distance, but even more so as Annie ran over and threw her arms around her, like a daughter reuniting with her mother.

"I was so worried that you had double-crossed us!" Annie exclaimed with relief as she hugged her tight.

"Why?" Victoria wondered. "Where is Maxwell? And what is all that god-forsaken racket?" She groaned covering her ringing ears.

"Your rat-faced partner stole Lunk's vehicle," Scott answered rather harshly, despite the fact he'd just been proven wrong about the woman. "But it sounds like he didn't get very far either. The Invid are already after him."

"Invid?" She repeated curiously, when she soon recalled hearing that name mentioned quite a few times before. They still hadn't told her who or what the Invid even were exactly, but she had a feeling they were bad news.

"And now we have to go rescue Lunk's jeep and unfortunately your partner too." Lancer added with annoyance as he finished strapping on his armor.

Marlene cowered on the ground once more as Rook stayed by her side trying to comfort her.

Victoria listened to Marlene's cries of pain and immediately felt sorry for the poor woman.

"Well, we don't know how many are after him," Rand mentioned then. "Hopefully it's only a few. Did he activate some protoculture or did they just catch him out in the open?"